(10 seconds each to read and are almost that quick to prepare)
By Lisa Messinger
Food and Cooking at Creators Syndicate
How did you enjoy your last grilled homemade burger? Probably not as much as those who had been reading a recent edition of The Whole Deal, the free newsletter available in stores and online by the Whole Foods Market chain. If you followed its handy chart, you could have relished nine burgers from around the world, each with unique toppings and sauce.
This 20-page bimonthly guide has many sources for inspiration that take only seconds to read, such as:
--- The Greek burger: a mixture of ground beef and/or lamb with minced fresh dill, topped with feta cheese, roasted red peppers and arugula and sauced with plain Greek yogurt.
--- The Caribbean choice: ground chicken with jerk seasoning, topped with romaine lettuce and sauced with fresh mango salsa.
--- The Chinese selection: ground pork with chopped scallions, crowned with sliced cucumber and spread with store-bought hoisin sauce that’s been mixed with a small amount of mayonnaise.
Since we're talking about Whole Foods Market, that might mean their organic hoisin sauce or brand of vegan mayonnaise or any other healthful item in their eight pages of $55-“plus” worth of coupons. I was so engrossed in their original, helpful content that I barely noticed the products being touted until the end. And then I wrote shopping list reminder notes by many of them because they seemed unique. The “plus” is that the coupons are online, too, and though they may have expiration dates, they often can be printed multiple times for various shopping trips.
Creativity runs rampant through the pages. Not only are there innovative recipes for melons (like a boldly flavored easy pickled one) but a sidebar of tips for what to do with them. Run of the mill? Definitely not. Read on their site about uses for the seeds.
I was entertained and informed for close to two hours reading every word of the copy I picked up at the store as I ate a solo meal between errands. This rivaled many cookbooks I've read lately and trumped almost all of the many supermarket freebie magazines through which I have flipped.
There was the “Daily Meal Planner” that gave invaluable ideas for every day of the week, including a Cook’s Night Off on Wednesday and a weekend brunch, features like a do-it-yourself spa day with homemade scrubs and masks and a slew of recipes, food preparation tips and a delicious bonus: where to find lots more related recipes online.
In the meantime, here are a few more of their quick summer suggestions that all appeared in that one jam-packed issue:
Tango with Some Mango: Combine diced mango, shredded kale, diced avocado, black beans and lime juice for a dynamic salad.
The Flavor of Coffee Cubed: “Coffee cubes don’t dilute your iced coffee drinks as they melt, like those made from water. Use ‘em for smoothies and shakes too,” notes “The Whole Deal.”
A Gift that Grows: As a loving present, offer to let your recipient pick a small plot on their land for you to turn into a culinary garden for them. “Maybe a ‘salsa garden’ with tomatoes, onions, peppers and cilantro or a ‘pizza garden’ with tomato, basil and oregano,” suggests “The Whole Deal.”
QUICK TIP OF THE WEEK: Consider having water – either in store-bought bottles or your own reusable canister – be your constant companion, so that you don’t end up dry-mouthed and tongue tied. Besides the obvious and important hydration value when you are out and about, this means you are never without the most perfect beverage for your health at social gatherings. Many a party, barbecue or picnic has been known to have been stocked with soda, juice and beer without a drop of bottled, purified or filtered water in sight. Even if the soda offered is diet that usually means artificial sweeteners and/or chemicals are part of the mix. It’s chic to travel with your own water canister, and then you end up in charge of quenching your own thirst rather than having to rely on others.
Lisa Messinger is a first-place winner in food and nutrition writing from the Association of Food Journalists and the National Council Against Health Fraud and author of seven food books, including the best-selling The Tofu Book: The New American Cuisine with 150 Recipes (Avery/Penguin Putnam) and Turn Your Supermarket into a Health Food Store: The Brand-Name Guide to Shopping for a Better Diet (Pharos/Scripps Howard). She writes two nationally syndicated food and nutrition columns for Creators Syndicate and had been a longtime newspaper food and health section managing editor, as well as managing editor of Gayot/Gault Millau dining review company. Lisa traveled the globe writing about top chefs for Pulitzer Prize-winning Copley News Service and has written about health and nutrition for the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, Reader's Digest, Woman's World and Prevention Magazine Health Books. Permission granted for use on DrLaura.com.
